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The viewership for live television broadcasts has generally been declining for years. But something surprising is happening: events such as the winter Olympics and the Grammys are drawing more viewers and more buzz. The rebound is happening at least in part because of new viewing habits: while people watch, they are using smart phones or laptops to swap texts, tweets, and status updates about celebrities, characters, and even commercials.

Marie-José Montpetit, an invited scientist at MIT's Research Lab for Electronics, has been working for several years on social TV--a way to seamlessly combine the social networks that are boosting TV ratings with the more passive experience of traditional TV viewing. Her goal is to make watching television something that viewers in different places can share and discuss--and to make it easier to find something to watch.

Carriers, networks, and content producers hope that making it easier for viewers to link up with friends will help them hold on to their audiences rather than losing them to services like Hulu, which stream shows over the Internet. And opening TV to social networking could make it easier for companies to provide personalized programming.

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Many developers are working on ways to let people share the viewing experience over broadband connections or through set-top boxes; indeed, cable companies and other broadband video providers have sponsored small trials of various interactive TV services around the world for more than 20 years. But most of the systems were even clumsier than the combination of laptop and large-screen TV that today's viewers have kludged together. ­Montpetit wants to unite different communication systems--especially cellular and broadband services--to create an elegant user experience. She's been sharing ideas about that sort of system with BT, which provides broadband connections to 15 million people in the United Kingdom and Ireland, including nearly a half-million digital-TV subscribers.

Though BT won't comment on what form its social-TV system might take, Montpetit and her students at the MIT Media Lab demonstrated an intriguing prototype last year. A central database aggregates video from online sources like YouTube, shares user-specified data with social networks, delivers video to the user's TV, and lets users and the people in their networks send comments and ratings back and forth via an iPhone app. It avoids using the TV screen for messages, something that has proved irritating to consumers who don't want clunky text obscuring the pictures on their 52-inch HDTVs. The app also allows the user to tell the network what program to show on his or her set. For instance, if a friend suggests a show and the owner agrees, that show will pop up at the appointed time. In February, Montpetit and her students presented a refined version of this system to BT. Jeff Patmore, who works with Montpetit as head of strategic university research at BT, says such a system could be rolled out this year, although he declines to confirm any plans. But Montpetit anxiously awaits U.S. deployment of social TV: her daughter, with whom she watches certain shows, heads off to college next fall. Engineering and business issues aside, she wants social TV to help friends and family stay connected, even as they move apart.

It's not gonna work. When I watch a game, I want to look at it. In other words, I do NOT want to look at anything else, be it the remote control, smart phone or anything else. Besides, even if that problem is solved, the issue is mostly in divided attention. So it will work only with those who prefer to chat than to watch the game. But they'll have to choose.

1643 Days Ago

09/30/2010

most young people are native multi-tasking, remember that. they annoy watching one channel, or doing any single action (even playing a game?). we live in the world of information 2.0...

1800 Days Ago

04/26/2010

Socail TV and the game or whatever

My son and I message each other from time to time during football games in which we have an interest. Usually, though, it's during half time or the occasional long TV time out; no other times that wold disturb the flow of action. More importantly to this article, we already know what we're going to watch and what our friends are going to watch and frequently we're watching together, so..........how's this gonna get in that picture?

1800 Days Ago

04/26/2010

Social TV

Given that old fashionned television is still very popular and that new medias are portable. I think that Mobile DTV embedded in every portable device will bring back the captive, but mobile, audience in front of scheduled programs. With the added possibility of interacting socialy.....

1799 Days Ago

04/27/2010

Why are they bothering?

This is about saving the broadcast television industry. An important point to note is that the business plan for that industry is built on advertising. But viewing technology's contribution so far has been to allow the viewer not to watch the advertising. For instance, I use my DVR as a time-shifter. This is not only to watch at a time convenient for me, though admittedly that's how it started. But now I will pause a show for 15-20 minutes for each hour it will be on, just so I don't have to watch commercials. Those 15-20 minutes now belong to me, not to the advertiser.

rttedrow echoes that philosophy in his implementation of "social TV". Being social is something he does during commercials, in preference to watching them. One must imagine that a social aspect integrated with the broadcast will be exercised to avoid the commercials. (If not -- if the implementation can't be used during comercials -- it is unlikely to boost interest or viewership... at least if rttedrow is to be believed.)

As those paying the bucks (the advertisers) figure this out, broadcast TV will be in even bigger jeopardy than it already is.

Suggestion that it's not hopeless: I DO watch the Super Bowl as much to see the ads as the game. Maybe that's the answer. The advertisers could make the ads sufficiently amusing that I'd actually WANT to watch them. And change them so I wouldn't see the same one all the time. Nah, they're not going to spend the money to actually make the ads effective.

1721 Days Ago

07/14/2010

Thanks for this comment - spot on if you'd ask me.

It's indeed all about sponsoring brands money to have ads flowing to our eye-balls.

To pick up from this point; the basic enabling technology for Social TV is either already out there or very close to completion. There are already some interesting social TV initiatives today.

Look at ITV Live's very succesful initiative in the UK - a social TV experience around World Cup Soccer which I understand engaged 2 million new viewers within 3 weeks. Now that's a strong indication that social TV could actually work - indeed especially with live sports coverage. Sports is one of the biggest drivers for people to share their passion.

The question now is; how to monetize this. Because only then innovation of TV into social TV will actually be able to reach the general public.

Very much to your point - the real change will happen only if sponsoring brands can be persuaded to change their GRP based media buying (push, push, push advertising) to a new and engaging advertising model. Somebody (i.e. sponsoring brands) will have to pick up the bill for the social TV innovation.

But as brands are just beginning to understand old push advertising does not work in social media environments, it might take some time for them to adapt to this reality and implement new ad models for social TV.

I'm quite comfortable with the idea this will happen; we expect the tipping point of change somewhere in the near future, but probably not before the end of 2011.

But how do we get there? I think innovative technology enabled production companies and broadcasters will have to lead brands the way. Help them creat new tech enabled engagement advertising that fits within the social TV experience. But I'm not sure the winners of tomorrow are called Endemol or Fremantle...

Thanks again,

Dick

1537 Days Ago

01/14/2011

I realise I'm a bit behind the times on this, but I have been blogging on a similar theme recently and when I read these I saw the similarity so I thought I'd attach a link:

There are multiple reasons why sports fits social TV perfectly. Sports is the most popular live content on television, and watching sports is very social. In general, Social TV will be hugely popular. But among sports fans - it will be dominating.

The social-tv paradigm shift will undoubtedly catch many entertainment-industry behemoths off guard. The Soc-TV industry has very low barriers to entry, which will quickly spur innovation and competition. While the obvious winners will be the smartest and swiftest content-providers of Soc-TV, many of the most noticeable benefits will flow directly to those consuming the myriad of entertainment options that will soon become synonymous with Soc-TV.

Regards,

The Social-TV-Network

http://www.soc.tv

909 Days Ago

10/03/2012

I really enjoyed this post. This was another read related to social television that I found and also enjoyed if anyone is interested http://www.real.com/resources/social-television